104 
REMARKS ON THE CINNAMOMUM TREE. 
dominions, and the Dutch were, in consequence, often restricted to less than half 
their required annual exports. 
Governor Falk, in his attempt to remedy this evil, by cultivating the cinnamon- 
tree in the territory belonging to the Dutch, was discouraged by the prejudices of 
the natives, and discountenanced by the parsimony of the Supreme Government of 
Batavia. 
It was said, " For one hundred and fifty years Ceylon had supplied the requisite 
quantity of cinnamon, the expense of which was ascertained and limited: why then 
risk the success of a new plan, attended with extraordinary charges." This public- 
spirited governor nevertheless persevered in his undertaking, and to his success the 
English owe the flourishing state in which they found the cinnamon plantations of 
Ceylon, when they captured that island. This tree is now cultivated in four or five 
very large gardens, the extent of which may, in some measure, be imagined by the 
quantity of cinnamon annually exported thence, amounting to more than 400,000 
lbs. ; and from the number of people who are employed in the cinnamon department, 
these being from twenty-five to twenty-six thousand persons. 
The trade in this produce had always been a monopoly ; during the government 
of the Dutch this was enforced with an excessive degree of rigour, at which 
humanity revolts. It is painful to contemplate man, when greediness for exclu- 
sive gains, the meanest of all motives, incites him to acts of oppression and tyranny. 
The selling or giving away the smallest quantity of cinnamon (even were it 
but a single stick), the exporting of it, the peeling of the bark, extracting the 
oil either from that or the leaves, or the camphor from the roots, except by the 
servants of government, and by their order, as well as the wilful injuring of 
a cinnamon-plant, were all made crimes punishable with death, both on the persons 
committing them and upon every servant of government who should connive at it. 
In order to keep up the price of the spices, the Dutch government was formerly 
accustomed to have these destroyed, when supposed to be accumulated in too large 
quantities. Sometimes, it was said, this oriental produce was thrown into the sea, 
and sometimes the work of destruction was accomplished by other means, M. 
Beaumare relates, that on the tenth of June, 1760, he beheld, near the Admiralty 
at Amsterdam, a blazing pile of these aromatics, which were valued at eight millions 
of livres, and an equal quantity was to be burnt on the ensuing day. The air was 
perfumed with this incense ; the essential oils, freed from their confinement, distilled 
over, mixing in one spicy stream, which flowed at the feet of the spectators ; but no 
person was suffered to collect any of this, nor on pain of heavy punishment to 
rescue the smallest quantity of the spice from the wasting element ! 
When in its natural state, the cinnamon tree attains to the height of twenty or 
thirty feet, sending forth large spreading branches clothed with thick foliage. The 
leaf when first developed, is partly of a bright red, and partly of a pale yellow; it 
soon, however, assumes a verdant hue, and when at its full growth is on the upper 
surface of a dark olive colour, and on the under side of a lighter green ; it somewhat 
resembles that of the bay, but is longer and narrower. The flowers bloom in 
January; they grow on footstalks, rising from the axilla of the leaves, and the 
